Miss McGarden's Musical Laugh
by rainonherwindow
Summary: Gajeel struggles with remaining focused. Levy is amused. [Oneshot. GaLe fluff and a grumpy librarian. Written for tumblr prompt, rated T for one swear, courtesy of Gajeel.]


**A.N. Long time no see, huh? (If any of you have read my stuff before that is, this is a different fandom...). Yeah I know I should be updating WAN or one of my HP fics, but life's been super stressful lately and I haven't really been myself. **

**Anyway, I wrote this back in February for a tumblr prompt, and thought I might post it here 'cos I don't have any FT fics on ff dot net (which'll probably change soon). **

**Enjoy the short and fluffy GaLe.**

**-FlyAway**

* * *

He'd never really got libraries.

He didn't know if it was the funky smell that put him off (like seriously, what _was _that?) or if it was the eerie stretching silences that always filled every crevice of the places. Or maybe it was the cranky librarians that seemed to prowl around in every library ever, on the hunt for fresh meat at whom to screech and brandish heavy volumes threateningly.

But whatever the reason, Gajeel had long since decided that he _disliked _libraries, to put it mildly. They didn't sit right with him.

(Lily, in all his omniscient glory had voiced the opinion that it was the vast amounts of knowledge housed within the buildings that put him off. Gajeel, or course, knew that that was completely ridiculous and in no way was he _intimidated by knowledge,_ as Lily had so eloquently put it. He was intimidated by nothing. If anything, the knowledge should've be intimidated by _him_, not the other way around.)

So how he had ended up at Magnolia's public library was something that baffled the iron dragonslayer. He glared up at the welcome sign that glinted obnoxiously gold in the bright midday sun.

_Magnolia Library_

_Home of the mind_

Gajeel snorted. What a cheesy tagline. Besides, why the hell did the library even _have _a tagline? It was library.

_Why was he here again? _

He glowered at the sign for a few more minutes, racking his brain desperately to try to recall why the fuck he was here the first place.

"Gajeel?"

Oh. _That _was why.

He glanced over his shoulder and was greeted with the lovely sight of the tiny, blunette solid script mage that was Levy McGarden.

And damn did she look fine in those shorts.

"Gajeel? What are you doing here?"

Said dragonslayer's eyes shot up to her face so quickly for a moment he feared they'd roll back into his skull. He mentally berated himself.

Levy may have been the most gorgeous thing on god's green earth but he could _not _keep getting distracted by her like this. It'd end up getting him severely injured or something (although whether by enemies on a mission or Levy herself he wasn't too sure).

"Hey, Shrimp."

The bluenette cocked an eyebrow. "Hi," she replied, an almost invisible smirk tugging at her lips. "What are you doing here?"

_Not trying to find you or anything._

_Obviously._

"Eerrrr," Gajeel floundered. "Visiting."

"Visiting."

"Yup."

"The library?"

"Yup."

"Really?"

"Really."

Levy levelled him with a disbelieving gaze. "It's just, I've never seen you here before and you never struck me as the book-type."

Gajeel grunted and crossed his arms. "A guy can't have a change of heart?"

Levy giggled and started forward.

_Towards him._

He shifted as she walked past him, headed for the double doors to the library. When he didn't follow her, however, she paused.

"You coming, Mr. Library-Man?" She asked.

Gajeel grunted again, but followed her in nevertheless.

The place smelt just as funky as he remembered most libraries to smell. But this time it didn't bother him so much. It smelt like Levy.

Yeah, the place kinda reminded him of Levy. He supposed that made sense, she was an avid book-reader and her magic revolved around words to boot. Of _course _the library would smell like her.

The object of his thoughts came to a stop in front of a huge shelf filled high with rows upon rows of neatly tidied tomes.

"So since you're such a big book fan now, Gajeel," the Shrimp spoke up, pulling a hefty volume from the shelf and flicking through it. "You wouldn't mind carrying my books for me, would you?"

Gajeel raised a suspicious brow. He was one-hundred-percent certain that, despite her diminutive size, the Shrimp was more than capable of carrying her own books. She did it often enough anyway.

But unfortunately for Gajeel, he never had been able to say no to the tiny solid script mage.

Besides, it was just books, no big deal.

Oh how wrong he was.

...

...

"You done yet, Shrimp?" Gajeel asked half an hour later, his voice muffled by the small mountain of novels stacked precariously in his arms

"Nearly," came Levy's melodious tones from somewhere to his right. He could hear her amused smirk. That sneaky little bookworm had planned this. "Thanks ever so, by the way."

Gajeel grunted and huffed a strand of hair from his eyes. "'S not a problem."

The stack swayed as Levy placed one last book atop it and double-checked the pile. "Okay, done."

Levy grabbed hold of his bicep (Gajeel pointedly ignored the warm tingling feeling that spread through his arm at her touch) and guided him towards the counter. She cleared her throat.

Around his load, Gajeel saw the wrinkled old librarian raise her head slowly and survey Levy through bespectacled pale eyes. "Miss McGarden," she said in a croak. "How you manage to get through so many books in such a short amount of time baffles me."

Levy just grinned (which absolutely did _not_ make his heart thump loudly in his chest).

The librarian sighed pulled out her stamp.

The process of marking each book and placing back into Gajeel's arms took several minutes, during which the dragonslayer received numerous distrustful glares from the old lady. "I want them all in perfect condition when they come back."

Gajeel thought it prudent not to mention the fact that several of them were in far from 'perfect condition' in the first place. Damn, Lily must've been rubbing off on him.

Once all the tomes had been stamped and returned to his grip, Levy led them out of the library and back out into the warm sunshine of Magnolia's streets.

"Alright, Shrimp," Gajeel said. "Let's go, I dunno how much more of this my arms can take."

Levy glanced at him in surprise. "Huh?"

He rolled his eyes. "Your apartment, Shorty. You can't exactly carry these all the way home yourself."

A slight flush blossomed across the bluenette's cheeks. "You really don't need to do that, Gajeel."

He huffed, ignoring the warmth that was spreading across his own countenance and thanking the heavens she couldn't see his face past the bloody books. "I've got 'em now, might as well take them back to your place while I'm at it."

Levy giggled (and _hell, _it was adorable) and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Thanks."

With that, she stretched onto her tip-toes, leant around the books and pecked him on the cheek.

Gajeel's face burst into flame, the heat stretching all the way to the tops of his ears. He swung around, ducked his head and marched off down the street in the direction of Levy's apartment. "Come on, Shrimp," he coughed. "My arms are about to fall off."

Behind him, clearly knowing _exactly _what she had just done, Levy laughed.

(And Gajeel obviously didn't find it musical, nope not at all.)


End file.
